This all started because I was compiling some simple classroom activities from my own archives for a project for work.  Then I realised that it would be even better if I crowd-sourced some ideas and as ever, the #mfltwitterati were magnificent in sharing.

The main aim was to collect those basic, no props required, vocabulary drilling activities.  In collecting them, other simple ideas snuck in, but I decided that was absolutely fine – who’s going to complain!

I’ve separated them into four different categories to make it a little bit more manageable.  There will be errors, I’m sure, and you’ll have your own versions.  In fact, @langwitch has a Lingo Bingo all of her own and she has explained it far better than I can, so hop over to her blog and have a look yourself.

Then there’s always the issue of what to call these activities – I call it one thing in German, another in French, and that’s without regional variations!

But call them what ever you like, you’re more than welcome to them!

No props required list

Board activities list

Flash card activities list

Little prep required list

Has there ever been a TeachMeet which wasn’t worth attending?  I don’t think so!

This particular event was organised on a Friday evening by @DeputyMitchell and @Dughall, and the room was packed out.  Not only that, but there was a live video feed, and the event was being watched in Plymouth, Buckinghamshire, and in various other locations!

There were so many good ideas to take away, and the place was buzzing by the end.  @simonhaughton has already done the hard work in covering the highlights in his post, and I did my slot on one of my favourite collaborative learning activities, which you can find information about in these previous posts, or by typing collaborative learning in the search box on this blog.

But what I wanted to do was quickly highlight some of the ideas and links that I could see having a use in language teaching.  The majority are familiar to most, but by mentioning them here, at least I’ll know where to find them when I need them!

So, in no particular order:

• Audioboo and ipadio for instant sound recordings and uploading to a blog.
• Flickit for instant uploading of images
• Coveritlive - live event publishing
• Newspaper clipping generator – I tried this out quickly, and it seems to support foreign characters
• Logo54 generates any words you like in the style of famous logos (like the one at the top of this post)

Those last couple of links were courtesy of @ideas_factory, who kindly shared a link to a whole host of generators here.  Whilst browsing, I found this one:

Not the most imaginative conversation, but I hope it illustrates the point.

OK, OK I can take a hint!

Here’s one called Numbered Heads Together.  To get the most out of it, you need to seat pupils in groups of 4 and of mixed ability.  Each pupil will need a mini-whiteboard, and a pen that works

• Pupils numbers themselves 1-4 round their table, then teacher asks the question.
• Using mini-whiteboards, pupils work individually at first to write down their best response.
• When ready, each pupil gives a thumbs up, then all stand up.  They huddle together, discuss and decide upon the group’s best answer, then sit down.
• Teacher rolls a die, and which ever number it lands on (1-4), that person from each group must share their answer with the class.
• Teacher can see errors, ask pupils to explain how they reached their conclusion, ask pupils to explain errors to other groups.

Some examples of how I use this activity:

• Give the infinitive of an unknown regular verb and ask pupils to give a particular conjugation (ie getting them to apply the rule)
• Give a sentence in the present tense and ask pupils to put it into the past/future tense
• Give pupils all the words required to make a sentence, and ask them to unjumble it (very good for practising correct word order in German)
• Give four or five words or phrases, ask which is the odd one out and why (could be gender, irregular verbs, phrases in different tenses)
• Give four or five words in the target language (the dafter the better!) and ask pupils to create a grammatically correct sentence using all of the words (they can add other words, but must still use the words you supply) eg Jupiter, hatstand, monkey, George Bush.
• Ask pupils to write rules for a particular grammar point they have learned (good for starter or plenary).

I can’t begin to do full justice to all of the presentations here, but I’ll share the highlights, and where possible, link to people’s own blogs or presentations of their own work so that the information comes straight from the horse’s mouth.

First up was Mark Purves.  Mark is an enthusiastic advocate of singing as a tool for learning, and he got the day off to a rousing start by sharing some strategies for just that.  Music lifts the mood, and singing helps with controlling breathing – warm up exercises for voice,which is the instrument of languages.

Samantha Lunn was next, with some fabulous  suggestions for routines in the language classroom – she explains it all – and posts links to relevant documents – on her blog, so head on over and see what she has to say!

Thinking skills were the feature of Lynn Smith’s presentation, and she shared with us a multitude of ideas for developing these in MFL teaching and learning:

• Odd one out
• Give a selection of words, use each word once only to make 8 phrases in past tense
• Almost encouraging pupils to be confused, part of the learning and thinking process
• Memory map – a house is described on page outside classroom – pupils must take it in turns to read description, return to group and draw what they have read
• DeBonos hats to promote discussions
• Plenary- create mind-map ( = synthesising)

It really sparked my curiosity, so here’s my contribution.  I have to admit, I came up with two pairs of photos and couldn’t decide between the two, so I’m going to share both.  If it’s any justification, the two pairs are connected to each other.

Pair One

• Where do you think is this?
• How are the images connected?
• What do you want to know about this place?

Pair Two

• How are these people connected?
• Why are their moods different?
• What are they saying to each other?

I have talked about collaborative learning structures before (here and here), but I make no apologies because these techniques were the thing that turned my teaching around and gave me the confidence to hand the learning over to the pupils.

So here are the few slides I prepared as an overview, and below is the handout explaining some of the activities in a little more detail.  Please help yourself!

Cooperative Learning Structures - handout

… Stop Press … Samantha Lunn is also working with these structures now, so you may want to wander over to her blog to see what she’s up to – she’s just blogged this, for example …

Working with trainee teachers, I was always delighted to observe the change in thinking from “what am I teaching” to “what do I want my pupils to learn”, because this shift in perspective usually indicates a much better understanding of what makes good learning and teaching.

So this means that teachers are always involved in the search for activities to engage pupils and are really pleased to find something which their students enjoy doing, because that brings a greater likelihood that they are learning at the same time as having fun.

But then I wondered – what learning activities do teachers like to use because they enjoy them themselves?  To be selfish for a moment – what do you love to do in the classroom?

One of my own personal favourites is Quiz Quiz Trade (you can find an explanation in this post), because it means I can be peripherally involved, do some formative assessment, and the pupils are moving around the room (not stuck to their chairs), and asking as well as answering questions.

To get a broader view, I then asked my Twitter amici “What’s the teaching/learning activity you love to use because you enjoy it?”

Here are some of the answers which I received

• pass the teddy
• X&O, hunt the object/flashcard
• blindfold food tasting and naming
• PUPPETS!
• write dialogues\scenes and then act them out.
• fashion show, cafe (even inviting parents in) and songs.
• anything which takes me out of the picture; e.g. Running Dictation
• Shoe box decorated as a room (doll’s house furniture), then video with running commentary a la Through the Keyhole.
• I love the game ‘snatch’ takes forever to make but the kids love it and you can play match up, word and picture bingo with cards
• “remote-control partner”, with big open space e.g. footie field/sports hall and lots of those little cone thingies
• Cheat! Makes me completely redundant once I’ve made the cards. I also like post-it mania or headbands as I believe it’s called?
• Pass the parcel – brilliant with sentence stems – very little time required to set it up.

Now although these are a varied bunch of activities, two things struck me about this collection of responses.

Firstly, although some of them may take a little preparation, the majority then hand control over to the pupils.  To me, this doesn’t indicate laziness on the part of the teachers, or a wish to opt out.  It’s promoting active learning, with the teacher as facilitator and not as holder of all knowledge.

And secondly, there’s the fun element.  The #mfltwitterati all shared activities which are fun for everyone involved, teacher and pupil alike.  Fun, which means engagement, involvement, and perhaps even forgetting that it’s work.  On both sides.

It may be a bit much of a stretch to link this to the quote by Confucius: ”Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”, but I do think it’s true that in what can be a tremendously demanding and stressful job, planning things which are fun for everyone involved makes the job a little easier, and much more enjoyable.

With thanks to the following for their comments and contributions: @langwitch, @BonjourMcB, @PaulineSheaff, @bellaale, @IssacGreaves, @misstdunne, @zaragozalass, @amandasalt

Below the video are some materials which I have thrown together, which may be useful for part of a lesson – steal away if they’re of any use! (and apologies for any mistakes).

Suggestions for activities

Text sorting activity

Correct text order

Dictionary skills

So here’s one of my favourites.  I absolutely love this film, and use any opportunity to show it to my students, because they usually love it too.

I find it interesting and useful for the classroom on many levels:

1. First and foremost, it’s a great story.
2. It’s set in a school, so has a lot of young protagonists, which is usually a bonus for hooking pupils in.
3. The students are from a range of backgrounds (social, cultural, family).
4. Tranferring the original story from USA to Germany provides an extra dimension when considering autocratic government/leadership.
5. It opens up avenues to discuss some of Germany’s historical past, and to dispel some myths.

I use the film in a number of ways, depending on the class I have:

One year, I used the film as a stimulus for an extended piece of writing, before watching the film.

I showed my class some stills from the film, and told them nothing other than the names of the characters and that the setting was school.  I told them they could be either one of the characters, or a friend of one of the characters. I suggested that they think about describing the people, their relationships, the school, and what a typical day would be like.  For more able, I added that they might want to use their imaginations to describe something unusual that happened at school.

They loved it!  The less able (it was a mixed GCSE group containing pupils with targets from A to G) did basic descriptions of the characters, whilst the more able had one of the pupils with a crush on the teacher, or one of the pupils stabbing another!

After working hard on the task, the reward was to watch the film, and the pupils were intrigued to see what actually  happened to each of the characters. Some were very close to the truth.

With a much weaker group, I introduced the film and some of the historical/political references which they might have missed, and let them watch it.  Afterwards they used a gap fill exercise to summarise the story.

This year’s Year10 group get to watch it after they’ve done their next Controlled Assessment – 0n school!